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It's been more 30 years since I, as a relatively new Christian, was first introduced to the music of Amy Grant—a fellow teen at the time (and the object of much smitten-ness from my college buddies and me).

We've all lived a lot of life since then, most of us outside of the public spotlight. But not Grant, who went from Christian music's darling to being one of its first major "crossover" artists in the 1980s, and then to public scrutiny for her 1999 divorce from Gary Chapman (with whom she had three children) and her 2000 marriage to country music star Vince Gill (with whom she has a 9-year-old daughter).

Amy Grant, still on a long and winding road

These days, Grant says she's happier than ever, while also wrestling with "a lot of uncertainty within my extended family as we've experienced pain, loss, and joy"—including the recent death of a friend and the decline of her mother's health. It's been an emotional roller-coaster for the six-time Grammy winner, who turns 50 later this year. She chronicles that ride in her stellar new album, Somewhere Down the Road, which includes six new songs, two previously unreleased tracks, a new version of "Arms of Love," and three songs from earlier CDs. All were chosen to reflect Grant's own trek "down the road"—its highs and lows, joys and pain, and everything in between.

We recently caught up with Grant to talk about the album, her career, her family, and that often bumpy road of life.

Let's go back to your first albums—all that shiny, happy Christian music. Would you have ever thought, as an 18- or 20-year-old, that you'd be writing songs of pain and struggle like those that appear on this project?

I think I understood angst when I was young. I might not have known how to write about it, but … On my first record (1977) I had a song called "I Know Better Now." It started off, "Some people always know the right thing to say / I don't really think I was born that way / With the gift of charm they're well endowed / I love to watch them float right through a crowd." You know, that's no different than looking at an eight-year-old and saying, "Some day you will have the wherewithal and the stamina to clean this entire house, do all the laundry, and cook dinner for a family of six." They just look at you and go "Why would I want to? Who cares?"

And, "What's 'wherewithal' mean anyway?"

Yeah! (laughing) It's funny, watching my children as a grown woman—this is really going to make me sound like a weirdo …

Go for it!

All right. If the relationship with Christ to the church is most reflected in a relationship between a husband and a wife, then my early Christian music and my early relationship with God, and what that meant, was not unlike (9-year-old daughter) Corinna coming home from school and saying, "I think Will likes me. I have long hair, and he says it's beautiful." Her idea of love is just any attention at all. How do I explain to her that this little thing that makes her flutter will change? I can't say to her, "Some day you will flop down completely naked with a man and enjoy and perform the most earthy, reckless abandon, physical act that you can't even imagine, and eventually, because of that kind of interaction with a man, you will have a baby, and it's going to be a mess, and it involves pain and life and work and laughter and all of those things." Real relationship is gritty and earthy, the stuff that life is made of.

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